Properties and functions of molecular materials often emerge from intermolecular interactions and associated nanoscale structure and morphology. However, defects and disorder give rise to confinement and many-body localization of the associated wavefunction, disturbing the performance of, e.g., molecular electronic or photonic materials. Conventional microscopy and even nanoscopy lack spatio-spectral sensitivity to the low-energy and molecular length scales of intermolecular interactions, carrier-phonon coupling, and polaron formation, thus leaving a missing link between material structure and observed heterogeneity in the electronic or photonic response.We address these outstanding problems in several novel combinations of spatio-spectral and spatio-temporal infrared nano-imaging.
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